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January 17, 2008
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Its a boy! Sarah Feakins (and her husband Mike) are the proud new parents of Dylan Alexander Feakins. We haven't seen any photos yet...
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August 25, 2007
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With great sadness we announce that Sky Rashby, a 3rd-year geobiology graduate student in my research group, has passed away. His death comes just 2 weeks before the publication of his first research paper in PNAS. He will be sorely missed by all of his friends and colleagues here at Caltech.
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August 21, 2007
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Dr. Magnus Eek has relinquished his position as lab manager in my group to move back to Europe, where he will be joining the research group of Dr. Willi Brandt at the Max Planck Institute in Jena, Germany. We will all miss his skill and patience for keeping the lab running.
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May 1, 2007
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Dr. Alon Amrani has joined my research group as a Division Prize Postdoc. He will be developing analytical methods for compound-specific measurements of 34S/32S ratios in organic compounds.
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April 14, 2007
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Dr. Chao Li has finished his work here at Caltech, and is now a new postdoc in the research group of Dr. Gordon Love at U.C. Riverside. Good luck, Chao!
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March 1, 2007
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Maia Schweizer, a 1st-year geobiology graduate student, has just joined the group. Maia will be working on the organic geochemistry of putative fossilized embryos from the Doushantuo Fm. in China.
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February 6, 2007
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Our latest toy has arrived: a water isotope analyzer from Los Gatos Research, Inc. This instrument uses laser spectroscopy to measure the D/H and 18O/16O ratios of 1 microliter of water in about 3 minutes. Its amazing.
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January 16, 2007
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We have just been awarded a 5-year grant from the Geobiology and Low-Temperature Geochemistry program at NSF to study D/H fractionations in everything from bugs to plants to rocks.
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December 22, 2006
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Magnus' paper describing the combination of cell-sorting by flow cytometry coupled to spooling-wire microcombustion (SWiM)-isotope ratio mass spectrometry has finally made it into print in Geobiology.
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October 1, 2006
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We have been awarded a 1-year grant from the Beckman Institute at Caltech to continue our work on 13C analyses of microbial cells sorted by flow cytometry. This is a great new project for interested students!
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September 15, 2006
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Alison Olcott has packed her stuff and hit the road for snowy New England. She goes to become a WHOI Postdoctoral Scholar with Tim Eglinton and Chris Reddy. Good luck, Alison!
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July 3, 2006
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Sarah Feakins has joined the group as a new postdoc. Sarah is supported by the NOAA Climate Change fellowship, and will be investigating the use of D/H in plant wax compounds as a proxy for environmental aridity.
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June 10, 2006
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Magnus Eek has been promoted to the position of Research Scientist. He will continue his work on measuring 13C in microbial cells sorted by FACS, while at the same time serving as the manager for my laboratories.
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June 6, 2006
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Alison successfully passed her Ph.D. defense today. Congratulations Alison, er, Dr. Olcott!
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May 20, 2006
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Just completed a highly enjoyable 1-day field trip aboard the R/V Seaworld cruising around the Santa Monica Basin. The trip was part of my Biogeochemical Cycles class and the Microbial Ecology class taught by Victoria Orphan. There were no casualties, although quite a few sleepers. Pictures to follow sometime. Thanks to the GPS Division and the ESE Program for supporting this trip!
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March, 2006
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Two new papers are now in print. The first is a review article, with Arndt Schimmelmann and Maria Mastalerz, describing D/H fractionations in sedimentary organic matter accompanying thermal maturation. The second is a research paper in Geochimica describing seasonal variations in the D/H ratio of lipids from the marsh grass Spartina alterniflora.
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